Amiri Baraka (1934–2014,) previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. During the 1960s, he was an influential spokesperson for radical black literature and theater and black cultural determination.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, into a middle-class African American family, Baraka graduated from Howard University. He served in the U.S. Air Force but was dishonorably discharged after three years for the reason that he was suspected (incorrectly, at that time) of having communist associations. He then attended graduate school at Columbia University.
Following the assassination of the African-American civil rights activist Malcolm X in 1965, Baraka became gradually focused on Black Nationalism and later Marxism-Leninism.
Baraka is best known for work dating from the early 1960s, when his cultural and racial anger spilled out in such poetry collections as Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note (1961,) The Dead Lecturer (1964,) and Black Magic (1967,) and in plays like The Toilet, Dutchman, and The Slave (all 1964.)
Baraka’s other works include a volume of stories, Tales (1967,) and a seminal study of the social significance of African-American music, Blues People (1963.) The Motion of History (1975) expresses his rejection of black separatism in favor of a broad-based international socialism.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Amiri Baraka
As I stared at the books, I suddenly understood that I didn’t know a hell of a lot about anything. What it was that seemed to move me then was that learning was important… I vowed, right then, to learn something new every day. It was a deep revelation, something I felt throughout my whole self.
—Amiri Baraka
The landscape should belong to the people who see it all the time.
—Amiri Baraka
The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.
—Amiri Baraka
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Maya Angelou American Poet
Audre Lorde American Poet, Feminist
Richard Wright American Novelist, Short-Story Writer
Alice Walker American Novelist, Activist
Eugene O’Neill American Playwright
Wendell Berry American Author, Environmentalist
Archibald MacLeish American Poet, Dramatist
Langston Hughes American Poet, Writer
Ursula K. Le Guin Science-fiction writer
Margaret Walker American Author, Poet